Indianapolis 500 winner Alexander Rossi has turned down an offer from Manor to return to his former Formula One team at the 2016 Hungarian Grand Prix to finish out the second half of the season.
Manor had used Rossi for a partial 2015 season and after Rossi got respectable results from his vastly underpowered car, it was widely expected that he would be granted a full-time ride for the 2016 season. But Manor instead, selected Rio Haryanto to be the full-time driver for the season after Haryanto brought a boatload of sponsor money from Indonesia oil company, Pertamina. That funding was only for the first half of the season and now, with the money gone and Haryanto’s poor results, Manor came crawling back to Rossi, hoping he would take them back.
Rossi, in the meantime, moved to the IndyCar circuit where he is in a more competitive situation than F1 and scored an unexpected victory in the iconic Indianapolis 500 in May.
Manor named Renault reserve driver Esteban Ocon as their second driver for the remainder of the season.